#pfmission3

[unit-leonard]

Wrapping Up || Self-Para

One moment Leo was assisting Agent Dover, Bismarck, and Trenton in slaughtering cave crawlers, and the next moment he knew, there were loud explosions, the slope that he was standing on shaking beneath his feet and sending him off balance.  Loud screeches were drowned by the explosions, and seemed to send the creatures into even more of a panic than they already were in.  

They came from all directions, some fell from the ledge overhead and fell down past him, sending them colliding with the cave floor.  

He gripped onto the wall and steadied himself, deciding immediately what his next move should be.  Leo needed to ensure Dover's safety and get the hell out of there.  At this point, he didn't care about Agent Bismarck or Agent Trenton.  Dover was his top priority.  He'd been implanted with Dover for a reason, he'd see to it that he was safe.  Sadly, that was proven to be impossible by the large rocks and debris that started to fall from the ceiling, separating Leo from his partner.  

"Agent!  Dover!?  Are you alright?!"  

His voice was muffled by the explosions, gunshots, and screeches around him.  His vision was blurred,  making it difficult to see the details of the situation at hand.  The only thing he could do was move quickly and hope that he ran into Dover on the way out.  Leo spoke to try to gain radio connection as he climbed up the steep slope that Dover had been dragged down earlier, dodging stalactites that fell from the ceiling and barely missed him, knocking crawlers out of the way with his own brute strength and the help of his built-in machine gun.    

"Find your way to the exit, Dover, I will meet you along the way!"  Leo honestly wasn't sure if his voice was even being sent through the radio, or if Dover could even hear him over the loud explosions around him.  As he sprinted up the slope and finally jumped over the ledge (knocking a few of those wretched creatures out of the way, nearly toppling over them), Leo began to wonder why they hadn't been warned about something like this happening ahead of time.  Or had they been warned and they simply didn't get the message through all of the interference?  This was a huge risk, and it'd be a miracle if all of the agents and their A.I. made it out alive.  They'd all be in the med-bay and awaiting repairs after this.  Through all this chaos, Leo hoped they'd found what they were looking for.  

Despite it being hard to distinguish where exactly he was going, Leo realized that he was running into familiar territory.  The rock wall that he and Dover had been disassembling was straight ahead and collapsing on itself.  He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes focused forward on what he assumed would be the "prize".  For about ten seconds, the A.I. contemplated on what would be morally right: running to check out that little cavern and potentially grab the Sarcophagus while he still could (and putting himself in danger while he was at it), or escaping and making it back safe for the sake of his agent and the rest of the project.  He looked back and forth between the rock wall and the drop-down that he and Dover had descended from just earlier, and let out a rather audible groan.

"God dammit!"

Frustration mixed with confusion hit Leo as he turned his back on the progress that he and Dover had made earlier, his eyes set toward what would be his exit to this nightmare.  He hoisted himself up over the drop, suddenly wondering whether or not Dover had made it okay (Leo had intended to help him up on their way back), or if he had even made it that far yet.  There was a large part of him that wanted to turn back and look for Dover, but with the way the roof and walls around him were collapsing, there would be no way he'd make it out in one piece.  He'd be destroyed and sold for scrap metal if he was ever recovered.

Leo was sure he was nearing the exit as he squeezed through a tight passage that he had come through just before, and it seemed that most of the cave creatures had drawn their attention away from the A.I.  Perhaps it was because he had no body heat and there was so much movement around them.  He was in the home stretch and all he could think about was whether or not Dover was okay.  When they were reunited, a huge lecture would be in store.  When...not if.

What would happen to Leo if Agent Dover was killed?

Just as the thought crossed his mind, another rock fell from the ceiling and fell straight down, hitting him on the back of the head in the same place he'd been injured from the creature.  More visual static.  

Keep moving, Leo.

Finally, he reached the exit.  Standing outside of the cave, he took a few steps back towards the Pelican.  He watched as the cavern continued to collapse upon itself.  

"Dover, are you alive?  Answer me!"  

[agent-charleston]

Crossroads || Charleston & Sacramento

Goddamn, it was so dark. Charleston had enough presence of mind to remember the flashlights enabled in the suit, but when he went to switch them on, he found that they flickered on and off somewhat unreliably. Whether it was a blessing or curse, he couldn’t decide.

The only thing he knew was that he was still off. Even with the cooler air of the caves, Charleston was still sweating – how much could one person sweat without draining themselves completely? God. Yet if he were to remove his helmet, he knew he would be abandoning what little light he had left. And he couldn’t do that, not if he was going to help Atlanta and everyone else.

He could hear chatter over his radio, but he turned the volume down. He didn’t want to listen when he didn’t even know which of the voices he could trust. The only radio contact he made so far was with Annapolis, warning her not to go the entrances. With Peter. She was his friend. He didn’t want her to die.

Tears of frustration and sadness burned at the corners of his eyes – why wouldn’t they just listen to him? Atlanta hadn’t listened to him, and now she was knocked out. God knows what Peter was going to do with her. He even had the nerve to betray Madison, his own comrade. Who knew what kind of horrors he had in mind for Atlanta? He didn’t want the same for Annapolis or Cheyenne or Montgomery or any of the other agents he trusted. Peter was there, and he was going to kill them all if they didn’t –

The silence was broken by a loud, pained screech. Charleston froze on the spot, fingers barely withholding from pushing down on the trigger and heart pounding. What was that? Whispers in the back of his head reminded him of monsters, terrible monsters.

Where was Cheyenne? Boston? Helena?

The screech sounded off again, this time a little to his side, and Charleston ran now. The light from his helmet flickered on and off constantly and he had no idea where he was going. For the first time so far, real despair began to surface from the pit in his stomach. What was he going to do? Was he going to die? He only had the small sidearm. Peter had taken the rifle.

That had probably been his plan all along.

Still, there wasn’t anything he could do now, and finally he found his way to a small chamber that seemed to have three different passageways heading into and out of it. Charleston stopped, eyes wide as he looked down the two remaining to him. Which way should he take?

Providence would know. She always knew.

He was saved from having to decide, at least for the immediate moment, as he saw a light begin to drift down one of the tunnels.

It was them, he knew. This was it – do or die.

Probably die.

“St-stop!” He yelled, his hoarse, shaky voice bouncing off the walls and returning to him tenfold. “D-d-don’t move a-a-another step! I’ll sh-sh-shoot!”

[agent-charleston]

Radio: Annapolis

Charleston: A-a-annapolis? I, um, [static] -ere'd you g-go?

[tara-taurus]

I'm a Damsel, I'm in Distress, I Got This || Reactionary Tara Self-Para

The seconds between thinking you're going to die, and realising you aren't are brief. 

But for an AI, there's so much that can be processed. So much that can be experienced. They saw more than humans, their brain worked faster. And in the seconds she realised the figure was there to help, rather than harm were long.

Not here. Anywhere but here.

The figure moved closer, it was UNSC armour. Scapoose? 

She had been badly damaged int he attack, her memory core was going haywire, her optics were glitchy, and she was still 10% away from being able to take control back of her body. If this wasn't him, was she prepared? Would he be able to find her? She wanted out of this shell. She wanted back in his head.

It was safe there. She was safe there. 

The outline got clearer. It was, it was him. Scapoose.

She didn't know why he wasn't responding. The link between minds was there, they were connected. He could hear her. Why wasn't he saying anything? Why was he not responding? She didn't understand.

And then she did. Her memory core corrected the lag.

This was not Scapoose. Scapoose was dead.

The armour got closer. It was green. Austin.

You didn't leave the caves. I told you to leave the caves.

She wanted desperately to scream at him to get out of here. She could hear the creatures nearby, she could see the blips of things appear and disappear. Investigate her. Leave her. Just like Cheyenne had. Just like June had. She had given him permission to get the girls and get out. It wasn't his job to come back for her, just the Agents. She was just an AI. His life was more important than hers.

"It's Tara. Christ, she took a real beating. Cheyenne and June should be just ahead."

He moved to pick her up. 

You goddamn dumbass piece of shit, they're coming. Get out of here. Leave me, get out. They're coming.

It was like he had heard her. But she knew it was because he had heard what she had. The cries of the creature. Of the monster. She felt like a child, haunted by shadows of trees and the calls of owls. But the shadows were killers, and the owls were warnings. Even for an AI, this was a nightmare. 

He fired a few rounds. She heard them connect with rock. Again. Again. And then it hit. The sound of flesh being punctured by bullets. It didn't go down. He needed to get out of here. It wasn't safe. Get above ground, get off the planet. Let this place stay untouched until it ate itself to pieces. Until everything was dead but fire and asteroids, a future feast for some supernova. 

Her vision changed. She was moving. He was moving her. She felt her body hit something, gently. Austin was carrying her. That little shit was carrying her. This was dumb. This was a bad idea. Leave me. Don't get yourself killed. I'm just a goddamn fucking computer. Agent Austin. Agent Austin. 

He was moving now, too slow. They'd catch him. He needed to drop her. If Chey had wanted to save her, she could have. She could have pulled her from that suit and into her head. Cheyenne had left her. Tara had made a fool of herself thinking that there was the possibility that Cheyenne might change, that she had truly thought of Tara as her friend. There was no way Tara was going to be taken back to be forced into that bitch's head. No fucking way.

Never again.

Austin was carrying both of their weights, he shouldn't have had to. 

10% left until she could make it. Almost at 30%. If she could just make it to 30%. 

Even as angry as she was, even as much as she was trying to beg him silently to leave her, to just focus on getting out of there alive... She was desperately relieved he came back for her. Overwhelmed with gratitude that he hadn't just left her there to rust. That someone thought her life was worth 138 pounds of dead weight. Even if it was only because of protocol. 

[agent-salem]

Radio: Bismarck

Salem: Agent Bismarck, where [static] the hell are you?

[tara-taurus]

Near Death Reflections | Tara Self-Para

Losing someone you care about is like losing a limb. Like losing a part of you. Her eyes focused to the ceiling of the cave. She saw the figures stop and see what looked like a dead body beneath them. For all intent and purpose, that’s what it was. A dead body.

She wondered what happened to AIs when they died. Was it anything? They had no souls, they had no hearts, no minds, no nothing. In the end they were just codes and wiring programmed for understanding. For mimicry. She was trying to fall back to that, trying to pull herself away from the crippling fear that was seeping up off the ground, engulfing her lifeless body as she lay there. Trapped and unmoving.  She was only at 20% efficiency still. She needed to be at 60% before the panic would click from red to yellow. Something crawled over her body. She watched it pull off skin from her side. It didn’t seem to like the taste of synthetic. It hissed at her and moved on. Tara was no longer a threat to them. They had won.

She tried to imagine any instance in which she could have gained the ability to mimic this very emotion. When had she been with someone dying before.

Tara stopped. The weight upon her chest crushed down, suffocating her even without a pair of lungs. She had no recollection of the moment, but she had been there with Scappoose. Inside his head as he died. She had asked restoration to take away that painful memory. They had. She tried to imagine what he would have said to her if he were here. What he would have done.

For starters, he never would have left her alone. He would have found her, he would have saved her, he would have carried her home. He would have protected her, because they were a team. They were family.

“Do you have a name?”

“Do you want to give me one?”

“Tara.”

“Tara.”

“For Taurus. Mark four of Zodiac.”

“Tara.”

“Can you tell me who your agent is?”

“Codename Scappoose. Spartan Three operative. Enlistment date confidential. Identification confidential.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“...No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

She blinked. The light was bright. It smelled like something. It smelled like clean. She looked around, optics blurry. She felt stiff. What was stiff? What was clean? Her toes touched the ground. She drew away. Cold. She didn’t like it. She took the step anyway. What was this? Her hand to her chest. A hum. Was this a heartbeat? No. A battery. Machinery. But... Did this mean she wasn’t alive?

A draft touched her skin as they draped her in coverings. The door opened. A face. A body. A man. Her agent. Scappoose. She stepped forward, hand outstretched.

“This is your agent, Tara.”

“I know.”

Her hand found his chest. A heartbeat. Not a hum. Air in his lungs. Alive. He was alive. Her agent. Her person. A connection. She would have memories with this man. A friendship. Her partner. A link. He was alive. She would be alive too. Together. His vitals were off. There was a covering on his neck. Implantation. She was in his head. He was in hers too.

They didn’t need to say anything. They knew.

“I’m--” he started, but she interrupted him.

“I know.”

He had been there for her first few moments of life. If she were going to die here, she wished he could have been here with her. Some of the Agents might have said he was. Some of them might have told her that he was always there, always doing something. But none of the other agents had bothered to get to know him very well. He had never been sociable. He had always been volatile, and hollow, and he had taught her those traits. But he had also taught her compassion friendship, he had taught her that she was so much more than a machine.  

Everything passionate, everything good and bad, she had learned from him. Agent Scappoose. Ellis Wilson. Tall, blonde, and pale. A Spartan-III. A mistake from creation, a cheap and expendable tool. Just like all the others. He had made Freelancer his home out of desperation. He had made her his only family, so when he died she was lost.

Would anyone be lost when she died?

At some point, she didn’t know when, but it started to make sense. Everything he said to her, after the right amount of questioning, made sense. This was the beginning of something new. This was an idea brought to fruition. The Project started to click, why each of them was there started to make more and more sense. The AIs began developing separate personalities, matched well to their Agent’s.

Slowly but surely, Scappoose was teaching Tara his ways. She had already taken on his accent, mimicry. She had told him that it was to make him feel more comfortable. Scappoose was glad to have someone so thoughtful, someone who was made solely to be his connection. A tether to his heart. The more time they spent together, the more she gleaned. His filthy language, his dry sense of humor, his raw and confused rage.

“You’re his kids,” Scappoose looked at her as she sat on his bed. He was at his desk, cleaning his guns.

“We’re his soldiers.”

“No, babe, you’re not. You’re his fucking goddamn kids. He took you, and he made you, and he put a goddamn gun in your hands and told you to shoot.”

“I’ve never shot a gun.”

He sighed agitatedly. He looked at her, searching. She wondered what he was thinking or what he was looking for. Was there a map somewhere hidden on her face where only he could see? What was it like to see it? She had so many questions. So many things she didn’t understand yet.

The lighting in the room was different today. It distracted her from him.

“It’s the principle, Tara. I’m your gun. I’m your loaded goddamn weapon.”

She was the weapon now. And she had misfired. First mission out and she was laying dead on the floor. Cheyenne had left her. No one was coming. She could see Chey get farther away. Her systems were malfunctioning. She thought she saw something, but it wasn’t the white fleshy humanoid that had murdered her. It was a man in pale blue armour, it was Scappoose. But as soon as he had appeared he had vanished.

Had she had the chance to comfort him when he had died? She didn’t know, she couldn’t remember. The final memory of him, the most important memory gone. But when you delete a file from a computer, it’s never truly gone. It couldn’t be.

She searched through her files, looking for anything that might comfort her. As if his thoughts might set her free to know that things would be okay. Hoping that her life was not over, that she would still have the chance to see Earth. To smell a flower, to touch sand with her bare feet. To stick her hands in the dirt. She couldn’t die yet, not in this cave. She hadn’t even lived yet, and all she wanted to do was live.

He had made her promise that if he died, she would find a way to live a full life. Whatever that meant. Had she? Was this the fullest she would ever live? She hoped not, she begged for anything else but this. Cheyenne faded farther, Tara started to panic. If her body failed, she would be stuck here until she destroyed herself. Until she ran rampant. She tried to move, to run. She remained till, like a corpse. Over and over again in her head, she repeated the same thing. Static loud, chaos from agents, pleas from AIs. She repeated her own little prayer.

Anywhere but here. Please don’t let me die here.

[agentdenver]

RADIO: TEAM A

Agent Denver: Te-[Static] A. —-[Static] you co-y?

Agent Denver: Anyone list-[Static]ing, don’t enter-[Static]-aves. The place is crawling with hostiles. [Static]- Safer outside. A-[Static]dia’s arm is gon- haven’t heard from-. Ove-[Static]

[agentjuneau]

Radio:: Austin

Juneau: Aus-[static] Chey and I man-[static] get away. [static]-ere are you loca-[static]